Steady in the Strength of God

Wake up. Ugh, not yet. Ok, now it’s really time to wake up. Get dressed. Get the kids dressed. Make breakfast. Pack lunches. Snacks in backpacks. Socks and shoes. Get the kids into the car. 

A day (or even just a morning) as a parent is filled with lots of to-dos and plenty of interruptions to those to-dos. I’ve found that when I go about all the responsibilities of motherhood in my own strength, I can maybe manage for a short while. But I soon find myself fragmented, exhausted, and overwhelmed. 

Living a life of strength doesn’t mean I’m always on time for school drop off or that I never forget to brush my kid’s teeth at night. Rather, living a life of strength as a Christ-follower is marked by a daily persistence to remain rooted in Christ and a daily insistence on growing deeper roots in Him. 

But how do we actually grow to be more deeply dependent on God? 2 Peter 1:3 highlights three ways we can look to God for strength. 

“I can pray this because his divine power has bestowed on us everything necessary for life and godliness through the rich knowledge of the one who called us by his own glory and excellence.”

God is Powerful

“I can pray this because his divine power…”

In his power, He created the world, spoke light into existence, and sculpted the complex bodies of humans out of dust and a rib. In His power, Jesus calmed the storms, healed the disabled, and resurrected back to life after being dead in a tomb for three days. And, in His power, God saved us. He took us from death to life, from a life marked with selfishness to a life marked with living for Christ. 

We can look to God for strength each day because He’s powerful. We don’t look to a God who can’t do anything about what we’re going through. But, we look to a God who has all the power to do something and, in his wisdom, will do what’s best for us. He doesn’t just have the power to change our circumstances (which is often what we want changed) but the power to change our hearts (which is often what we need changed).  

Every day, we can look to God for physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual strength because in His power, He can give it to us. We can lay our burdens on Him because He can take it. We can trust Him to change our hearts because He’s already done it, and He’s going to keep doing it. 

God Gives Us Everything We Need 

“…bestowed on us everything necessary for life and godliness…”

He uses His power on our behalf, for our good, giving us everything we need. Jesus’ prayer in Matthew 6 comes to mind, “Give us today our daily bread” (verse 11). Whatever we need for each day to live and follow him, He provides for us. 

I had a scary birth with my firstborn that ended in an emergency c-section. As a result, the entire middle of my body was not only in recovery from nine months of supporting the life of my baby but also from a major surgery. 

During my recovery, I struggled to be able to get up from a laying down position and stand up from a sitting position. The nerves in my back screamed from holding my baby while standing up. I prayed many short, simple prayers of “Lord, give me strength to get up” or “give me strength for this moment.” 

God answered my prayers every time, giving me strength to sit and stand up, to attempt to breastfeed again, and to wake up to pump breast milk even when I felt like I had nothing left. He gave me the physical strength but also the emotional and spiritual strength of knowing he was with me in those fragile moments. 

God gives us everything we need. He gives us our daily bread. We don’t need to feel like we have to carry all the weight of motherhood on our own and in our own strength. God is for us. We only need to look to Him and to ask Him for what we need in each moment of every day. 

God Has Called Us to Him

“…the one who called us by his own glory and excellence.”

Above all, we can look to God for strength because he has called us to Him. We are His, and He is ours. 

As a mom, I do so much caring for others that sometimes I long to be taken care of. I want to lay in bed, watch TV, and have my mom make me a cup of tea when I’m on my period and having really bad cramps. I want my dad to carry me when my legs get too tired from walking. I want my grandma to fill my breakfast bowl with pancakes and mandarin oranges in the morning. 

As grown-ups, especially as grown-ups responsible for our own kids, we don’t get taken care of in the way we were taken care of as children. And yet, we’re still God’s kids. 

As our heavenly Father, He’s providing for us in so many little and big ways throughout the day—clean water to drink, jobs and income, a place to live, clothes to wear, rain and sunshine for the plants to grow that feed us, good conversations with friends, tender moments with our children, a beautiful day to go on a family walk, and wild flowers sprouting up in the grass. 

We can find our strength in knowing that we are called to Him. If we are called to Him, we are His children, and He is our heavenly Father. 

Even though we have children who have many needs, and we spend much of our time taking care of them, God takes care of us because we are his kids. And because he’s the God of everyone and everything, He takes care of our kids, too. 

As we go throughout our day, changing diapers, doing school drop-offs, helping kids with homework, and cooking dinner, we can ask God for what we need. Do we need strength to get something done? Wisdom for a conversation with a kid? His peace and presence in the middle of feeling overwhelmed and anxious? 

We can bring our worries, struggles, needs, and feelings to Him and talk to him about it. When we do, we remember that He has the power to change our hearts, even change our circumstances, and will ultimately do what’s best for us. He will give us what we need (maybe not always what we want), because we’re called to Him. We’re his children. He’s our Father, and He wants to take good care of us.  

When we build this practice of coming to Him every day, we grow our roots deeper in Him. The stronger our roots grow, the better we can weather the unpredictable tides of motherhood. And rather than managing motherhood from a place of feeling fragmented and frazzled, we can forge ahead, remaining centered and steady in the strength of God.